Benefits management in software development: A systematic review of empirical studies

Abstract

Considerable resources are wasted on software projects delivering less than the planned benefits. Herein, the objective is to synthesize empirical evidence of the adoption and impact of benefits management (BM) in software development, and to suggest directions for future research. A systematic review of the literature is performed and identified 4836 scientific papers of which the authors found 47 to include relevant research. While most organizations identify and structure benefits at the outset of a project, fewer organizations report implementing BM as a continuous process throughout the project lifecycle. Empirical evidence gives support for positive impact on project outcome from the following BM practices: identifying and structuring benefits, planning benefits realization, BM during project execution, benefits evaluation and the practice of having people responsible for benefits realization. The authors suggest four research directions to understand (1) why BM practices sometimes not are adopted, (2) BM in relation to other management practices, (3) BM in agile software development and (4) BM in the context of organizations' value creation logics.

Benefits management and Information Technology work distribution

“…Such transparency, including the transparency of who is responsible for realising benefits, may potentially disincentivise the adoption of practices. Holgeid et al [10] suggest further studies into such potential connections between the transparency that comes with benefits management and adoption of the practices.…”

“…Holgeid et al. [10] suggest further studies into such potential connections between the transparency that comes with benefits management and adoption of the practices.…”

“…Holgeid & Jørgensen [33] found no significant variations of benefits realisation between the sectors. However, a systematic literature review of benefits management [10] suggests that benefits realisation may differ between different types of organisations because they may have different valuecreation logics. Holgeid et al [10] call for further study of variations across types of organisations.…”

“…Holgeid et al. [10] call for further study of variations across types of organisations. Public sector organisations need to do benefits analysis to have funding for projects.…”

“…Organisations have been striving to improve return on IT investments since the early days of professional use of IT. Several fields of research have been searching for ways to drive value from IT investments, including software economics [1,2], valuebased software engineering [3,4], benefits management practices [5][6][7][8][9][10], project portfolio management [11] and various aspects related to IT project success and failure [12][13][14].…”